


keep a candle burning in the window

by renquise



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Achilles patches Connor up, and time heals all wounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep a candle burning in the window

**Author's Note:**

> Set nebulously a little bit after sequence five.

The knocking came at a time of night best reserved for owls and drunkards. However, Achilles was evidently getting used to being woken up at all hours by all manner of people and the occasional turkey; not so long ago, he would have pointedly ignored the thumping at the door, but now, he put on his coat over his nightshirt and took up a lantern to see which fire needed putting out.

He opened the door to the lumberman—Godfrey, that was his name—with Connor leaning on his shoulder. Achilles, fortunately, managed to contain his immediate instinct to take the boy by the shoulders and ask where the hell he had been.

“Evening, Mr. Davenport. I’ve got a delivery came in on a horse for you,” Godfrey said, patting Connor on the back. 

“Thank you for your help, Godfrey,” Connor said, his cheeks red as he disentangled himself from Godfrey’s big arms and came inside, aiming for the stairs.

There was a bloodied slash across the back of his robes, and the boy was unsteady on his feet—whatever had possessed him to ride back instead of finding a proper doctor in the city, Achilles could not conceive. He had to be still standing out of sheer stubbornness, at this point. 

“I’ll follow him up, if that’s all right,” Godfrey said, looking worriedly up the stairs. 

Achilles nodded at him. “My thanks.”

“Not a problem.“

He gathered the necessary supplies to dress a wound, and slowly made his way up the stairs, his cane thumping on the steps. 

The house was still big and empty, and they still rattled around inside it—Connor came and went, something skittish in the way that he chose to sleep elsewhere at times. For someone who had crashed into the manor in the most insistent way possible, it had taken him a long time for him to stay.

Opening the old rooms again had felt like awakening limbs that have been asleep for a very, very long time. It was not pleasant: it prickled and it hurt, blood flowing again through tissue that Achilles had thought long dead and atrophied. The rooms had been much the same as he had left them, closing them one at a time, dismissing the servants and letting it all go. Now, they were clean, if still somewhat bare. The curtains were open, the windows cleared of dust.

When he had given the boy his choice of bedroom, Connor chose the corner room, the one where the sun shone through the windows in the mid-afternoon, all the brighter when it was winter and the leaves were gone. It had always been one of the nicer rooms, though the coincidence was compelling. 

“You get back on your feet soon, y’hear?” Godfrey said, once Connor had been safely delivered to his room. 

Connor nodded. “I’ll do my best,” he said, as if he could harness the healing process through sheer determination.

“Good night, then,” Godfrey said, excusing himself.

Achilles lit a lamp, which guttered and threw long shadows across the floor.

Connor tugged off his boots and shrugged off the robes stiffly, and looked about for a moment with the coat in his hands. 

“Leave them on the chair, for god’s sake, hanging them up isn’t a priority,” Achilles said, trying not to sound exasperated.

“Right.” He pulled his shirt over his head gingerly. Good, he had taken the time to bind the wound, at least.

“Come sit, and let me see.” Achilles eased himself onto the high mattress, gesturing for him to come closer.

Connor padded across the room to sit beside him. He tilted his head forward, pulling his hair out of the way, the muscles of his back tensing when the movement pulled at the slash across his back. 

A bayonet, no doubt, from the look of it. It looked thoroughly unpleasant, but it was a clean cut, and there did not seem to be anything caught in the wound; Achilles had seen too many of his brethren fall prey to the quiet waste of infection. With a bit of luck, it would not scar too badly and hinder his movement. 

One day, he would be as scarred and battered as Achilles—all assassins were, eventually. It was only a matter of time. But for now, he was brash and bold, and had not yet learned to shrink from a blade. Perhaps he never would, knowing Connor.

Connor did not trust easily, no, but he left his back exposed all the same with a willingness to be hurt for the slim chance that the world would choose not to betray him. Achilles wanted to shake him, sometimes, to tell him that the world was not so kind as to ignore an opening like that.

“You should bring back a doctor, next time, if you insist on getting far too close to bayonets,” he said lightly, setting out the dressing.

Connor bristled. “I had no choice.” 

“I know, boy, it was not meant as a insult to your mighty fighting prowess. Bring the lantern closer. My eyes are not as good as they once were.”

Achilles cleaned and dressed the wound as deftly as possible. His hands were still sure, at least; he had not yet suffered the indignities of tremors. Connor bore it well, breathing harshly through his nose when Achilles pressed too hard, but not making a sound. Despite his best efforts, he let a quiet, pained noise slip when Achilles packed the wound, sweat standing out on his skin. Achilles did not comment; the task needed to be done, and to ask if Connor was all right would be a slight to the boy’s pride. 

“Well done,” he said, patting Connor’s shoulder. “It’s never a pleasant thing.”

“It was not so bad,” Connor said, his shoulders slumping. 

“Of course.” Achilles wound a clean bandage around Connor’s shoulder. It was almost nostalgic, really. Achilles could not count the number of times he had performed the same operation on himself, though usually in far more terrible conditions.

Achilles stood and stumped over to the chest of drawers to get a clean nightshirt. Connor was still sitting on the bed, though he was tilting to the side, his eyelids drooping, exhaustion no doubt setting in after the fire of battle had finally cleared his veins. 

He found the nightshirt, then soaked a cloth in the washbasin and brought it over. Connor blinked at it when Achilles held it out. Connor belatedly lifted his hand to take it, but at this point, it was far more expedient for Achilles to tilt the boy’s chin up and wipe away the spray of blood from his face. Definitely not his own, that. Achilles could not help the swell of pride in his chest, and perhaps a twinge of guilt. There was the promise of broad shoulders in his frame, but the assassin’s robes were still long in the arm when he put them on, and he was still so young.

“We’ll go find a doctor in the morning to make sure that no infection sets in. If I see you climbing a tree, I will have no choice but to beat myself senseless with my own walking stick for being foolish enough to take on a charge like you,” Achilles said, picking up the lantern. 

Connor gave a small, rueful smile as he changed into the nightshirt and eased himself under the covers. “I will keep that in mind.”

Curled under the blankets, Connor could have been another, though Achilles knew that they would not have looked alike. 

“Sleep well,” he said, and blew out the lamp.


End file.
